‘Teenagers and the School Day: What research tells us’

As part of our commitment to understanding teens at North Bridge House Senior School & Sixth Form Canonbury, we were very pleased to welcome Dr Paul Kelley – the man behind the research into teen sleep- on 25th November 2015.

North Bridge House Canonbury’s Headteacher, Jonathan Taylor, invited Dr Kelley from Oxford University to explain the findings from his TeenSleep project (run by Oxford’s Sleep and Circadian Neuroscience Institute), and his scientific reasoning behind the stereotypical teen behaviour – up late at night and grouchy in the morning. Neuroscientists now believe that changes in the adolescent brain make teenagers sleepy in the morning and more alert at night and that delaying the school day can help youngsters study.

Dr Kelley explained that the 14-18 year old body clock is two hours out of sync with society’s 9-to-5 culture, in which we get up at about 7am and go to bed at approximately 11pm. 17 year olds are around yet another hour out of sync, so could realistically rise at 10am and as a result, perform better throughout the day.

Dr Kelley’s work has been influential in shaping schools’ timetables, including that of North Bridge House Canonbury, where Mr Taylor has made school starts a little later for Sixth Formers – and seen positive results.

A former head teacher himself, Dr Kelley changed his school’s timetable after a decade researching the subject. He found that academic results went up and that his students were much more tolerable with each other and with their teachers.

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